Although these volumes often glorified their author, they were avowedly written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. (1608) and The generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). His chief books included A True Relation of. John Smith, a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. All these factors in the development of the United States molded the literature of the country.Īmerican literature at first was naturally a colonial literature, by authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. Meanwhile, the rise of science and industry, as well as changes in ways of thinking and feeling, wrought many modifications in people's lives. By the end of the 19th century, too, it had taken its place among the powers of the world-its fortunes so interrelated with those of other nations that inevitably it became involved in two world wars and, following these conflicts, with the problems of Europe and East Asia. By the end of the 19th century this nation extended southward to the Gulf of Mexico, northward to the 49th parallel, and westward to the Pacific. After a successful rebellion against the motherland, America became the United States, a nation. For almost a century and a half, America was merely a group of colonies scattered along the eastern seaboard of the North American continent-colonies from which a few hardy souls tentatively ventured westward. Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the history of the country that produced it. 87ĪN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17 TH TO THE 20 TH CENTURIES AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17 TH TO THE 20 TH CENTURIES.
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